


A Token of My Affection

by modern_mage



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Knitting, Lance just wants to make Keith a sweater, M/M, POV Lance (Voltron), Pre-Relationship, Set during season 3/pre-season 4, Slow Build, Sweaters, is it too much to ask?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 12:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12276864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modern_mage/pseuds/modern_mage
Summary: Lance has a crush on Keith.So naturally, he wants to make him a sweater.(It's easier said than done)





	A Token of My Affection

The hallway is empty. Lance takes a few steps forward, rolls, and hides himself in an enclave. He can hear the beating of his heart in his ears, and he reminds himself to steady his breathing. He is in absolute total stealth mode, nothing will stop him from completing his mission, he must… 

“Lance, what are you doing?” 

Lance jumps, startled at the sudden voice. “What the cheese, Pidge?” 

She is standing beside him, and with Lance crouched in the enclave, she is eye level. A new robot floats behind her, one that she had spent way too many sleepless nights creating and one that reminds Lance way too much of Discount™ Rover almost blowing him up. 

Fun times. 

“Whatever you’re doing, you look like a dumbass,” Pidge says, ignoring his outburst. She smiles. “Not too out of the ordinary…” 

“Pidge!” 

“We’re in the Castle, Lance. Why are you sneaking around?” 

Lance opens his mouth to reply and then closes it again. Under no circumstances could he ever, ever explain his reasoning for this particular round of debauchery, _especially_ to Pidge. There’s just about only one other person aboard the ship that he could not explain this to, hence the sneaking around, and honestly, the longer he just stands here with Pidge, the better the chance that that certain someone will appear. After all, Lance is only about a hop, skip, and a jump away from his room… and how long can Keith train anyway? 

“Lance?” Pidge prompts. She waves a hand in front of his face. “Hello? Castle to Lance?” 

“I’m, uh, I’m training!” Lance knows that it is possibly the worst explanation ever, but the alternative leads to endless embarrassment at the hands of Pidge and then by extension Hunk. “You know, since we just happen to be in the middle of an intergalactic war that has only lasted for, I don’t know, ten thousand years!” 

Pidge gives him a look that says “explain what exactly you were doing before I set this robot to kill mode” and Lance gives in. He takes a deep breath, looks her in the eyes, and in a flurry of words… 

“IwasgoingtosneakintoKeith’sroomsothatIcouldmakehimasweater!” 

Pidge raises an eyebrow. “What?” 

“Oh c’mon Pidge, everyone knows that I knit-”

“-I was talking more about Keith, you know… your rival.” Pidge says it so innocently, but the bemused look on her face tells a different story. “Why would you ever want to make him a sweater? That is, unless, maybe-”

Lance clamps a hand over her mouth. “You’re not finishing that sentence, nope, no way, no. I most definitely do not feel about Keith in the way that you think I do, and honestly Pidge? You need to sleep more because I think you’re going crazy.” 

Pidge licks the palm of Lance’s hand, and he releases it from her mouth in disgust, shaking it wildly before rubbing it against his shirt. He should have expected that from her. 

“Wow, Lance, you sure know exactly what I was thinking.” Pidge rolls her eyes. “I was just about to go on and on about your endless, angst-filled pining-”

“Shut your quiznak!” 

“Still not using that word right, and anyway, you totally like him. You practically just admitted it.”

“No, what I did was inform you of your declining mental state because you are out of your mind if you think that I like Keith. Which I do not!”

Pidge shrugs her shoulders. “Suit yourself, Lance. Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night…”

With a gesture to her robot, Pidge leaves Lance to his devices, and with all of his nerve lost, Lance retreats dejectedly to his room. All he wanted to do was get a size reference for a stupid sweater, maybe a t-shirt or something, but if Pidge has been able to figure out that Lance is harboring feelings for a hot-headed leader, then Hunk will know within a varga. The ship only has six people on it, and word travels fast, so yeah… 

He’s doomed. 

+++

Of course, ever since the Lion Swap, Keith and Lance have, in fact, been spending more time together, so avoiding him long enough to figure out how exactly he is going to deal with everyone knowing about his space crush is impossible. Lance can’t stay holed up in his room since he’s now technically the second-in-command of Team Voltron (although that never stopped Keith), and before he can even get halfway through his “I’m Sadddd” playlist, there’s a knock at his door. 

“Lance?” 

It’s Keith. 

Lance takes off his headphones and tosses them on his bed. He had been lying down, all the better to have an epic angst-fest, but now he’s sitting up and running fingers through his hair to make sure he looks at least somewhat presentable. 

“Come in.” He regrets the words almost as soon as they’re out of his mouth. 

The door slides open, and there stands Keith, who just happened to have finished his training session and is coated in a layer of glorious sweat. His jacket is off so Lance can see those muscles taut from all of his sword-wielding, and if he’s being completely honest, he’s feeling so attacked right now. It should be illegal for someone with a mullet to look _that_ good. 

“You weren’t at training today, so I just wanted to see if you were, I don’t know, okay,” Keith says, explaining his presence. “Homesick again?” 

Lance shakes his head. “No, just… didn’t feel like it today, I guess.” 

“But we’ve been training together almost every day now,” Keith argues. He almost looks… hurt? “And we’re still at war, Lance. We don’t just get days off.”

“I know, man.” Lance presses his hands against his thighs and stands up from the bed. “I’ll go hit the training deck now. Just needed a tick.” 

Lance shrugs off his jacket and leaves it on the bed beside his discarded headphones. He debates whether or not he wants to put on full paladin armor, but he decides to pull a Keith and just wear his normal clothes. He would like more practice with his newly-unlocked sniper rifle, and some shots on the range might allow him to come to terms with the fact that Keith will probably learn of his crush on him very soon. 

He leaves his room and is walking down the hallway when he notices that Keith is following him and not heading into his room, the one that is so conveniently located next to Lance’s own. 

“Hey, I’m heading to the training deck. I’m a big boy; I can get there myself,” Lance says, looking back at him and holding his hands up in surrender.

Keith tilts his head slightly at Lance. “But we need to spar.” 

“Dude, you already hit it pretty hard today. I don’t think you need to go at it again just for my benefit.” 

Keith now falls into step with Lance. “Yeah, but maybe I _like_ training with you.”

Lance diverts his eyes from Keith, hoping that he looks away fast enough before Keith sees the blush spreading across his cheeks. Sure, they have been training together more often, but part of Lance had wanted to believe that it was because Keith felt responsible as team leader for improving everyone’s skill set. Or maybe it was because Pidge and Hunk were often so busy doing some techy mumbo-jumbo that Lance was Keith’s only option. 

Curiosity with a side dose of insecurity overwhelms him. “Why?” he asks. He turns his gaze back on Keith, who now has his hands shoved in his pockets. This time, it’s Keith that won’t look at Lance. 

Enough time passes that Lance feels half-tempted to crack an “awkward silence” joke, but it’s Keith, socially-inept Keith, and the last thing Lance wants to do is send him running for the hills when this is the most bonding they’ve had since that little pep talk Lance gave him when he managed to put the whole team in jeopardy. That wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience…

“We make a good team,” Keith finally says, and as he does so, he looks at Lance, almost pleadingly. Keith couldn’t be making a clearer allusion if he tried.

Lance clears his throat and maybe finds himself edging just a bit closer to Keith. “I do remember it.” 

“You do?” 

Lance smiles. “Yeah.” Keith looks relieved, and Lance feels like the worst possible human being for having ever lied about not remembering it in the first place. 

They’ve reached the training deck now, and Lance is almost disappointed when Keith strides in ahead of him. But at the same time, he sees something different in the way that Keith is holding himself. He looks more… confident as he grabs his bayard and lets it transform into its usual sword.

“Are you coming?” There’s an upturn in his lips as he asks this, and Lance realizes that he is still standing in the doorway, having just been caught staring.

“Uh, yeah,” Lance splutters. 

Definitely doomed. 

+++

It’s breakfast the next morning, and Lance has still yet been able to swipe a size reference from Keith’s room. It’s honestly starting to bother him. That jacket that Keith wears? It’s too small, and how does he even stay warm? Lance doesn’t know when space winter is, but Keith will be prepared for it if knitting a sweater is the last thing that he ever does. 

Okay, so maybe he’s being dramatic. 

Hunk is in the kitchen, and at the moment, they’re the only ones there. Lance feels that it’s safe to assume that Keith has already come and gone, and Pidge is probably still asleep or working on some tech project in her room. For sure, he knows that he doesn’t need to worry about Allura or Coran, who somehow manage to wake up at the most ungodly of hours (maybe it’s an Altean thing?), but anyway, they’re likely already in the control room. 

Lance is in the clear. 

“Hey, Hunk,” he starts, swirling his food goo with his spoon, “would it be ever so possible for you to do me a tiny little favor, pretty please?” 

Hunk stops mixing whatever batter he’s attempting this time and gives him a look. “Lance, I would do anything for you.”

“Aw, thanks buddy-”

“This is totally about Keith, isn’t it?” 

Lance narrowly avoids his food goo as he bangs his head against the table. At least he wasn’t wrong about Pidge telling Hunk. But that also means that he was on a very, very short timeframe for getting his life sorted out before Keith finds out about his painful and all-consuming crush. 

Hunk giggles. “Man, you’ve got it so bad. A sweater? You haven’t even made me a sweater.” Hunk pauses for a moment, thinking. “So… if I want a sweater, do I need to rock a mullet?” 

Lance groans. “Keith is more than his mullet, Hunk.” With those words having actually left his mouth, Lance’s head meets the table again, and his cheeks flush. 

“Keith and Lance sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g,” Hunk teases in a sing-song voice. He’s back to mixing his batter, and Lance wonders if enduring this suffering is worth getting something actually edible, unlike the food goo that his head seems determined to fall into. 

“Do you think you could distract Keith for me? Just for a few minutes so that I can sneak into his room?”

“What’s stopping you from going right now?” Hunk asks. “Doesn’t Keith train, like, all day?” 

Lance blushes again. “I need to be sure that there’s absolutely no chance that he’ll walk in. Can you imagine? ‘Lance, what are you doing in my room?’ ‘Oh nothing, just stealing a shirt so that I can knit you a sweater. Mighty fine weather, isn’t it?’”

Hunk begins to scoop the batter onto a tray. “You’re giving yourself too much credit. It would be waaayyy more awkward than that.” 

“I know! That’s why I need you to distract him, Hunk!” 

Hunk hums, as if in thought. He continues to scoop the batter, and Lance thinks the anticipation in his gut may actually kill him. Why must Hunk make him suffer so? He _literally_ just wants to make a sweater. 

“Alright,” Hunk says finally. “I’ll make sure he keeps training until he reaches level ten billion or whatever level he’s working his way towards. But-”

“What?” 

“You have to make me a sweater, too. And Pidge may have not-so-subtly hinted that she was peeved that Keith was getting a sweater and she wasn’t…” 

“Yes, yes! You get a sweater, and you get a sweater, and everybody gets a sweater!” Lance says in his best mock-Oprah voice. 

“Sweet, let me just finish making these cookies. I’m assuming you want some? You’ve barely eaten your food goo.” 

“Can you blame me, Hunk?” 

Hunk takes a long look at the food goo in Lance’s bowl and winces. 

+++ 

Lance now has one of Keith’s t-shirts stashed in the safety of his room. It is honestly smaller than what he had been expecting, and finding one had definitely been easier than all his dramatics warranted. 

His larger concern now is how long it will take for Keith to realize that one of his shirts was missing. It’s not like any of them had many possessions, them all having been zipped into space without hardly any warning, so a missing shirt is about ten times more noticeable than it would be back on Earth. He somehow needs to knit the sweater and return the shirt before Keith notices. Honestly, he’s just lucky that Coran hadn’t asked any questions when he asked for the Altean equivalent of yarn. 

Actually making the sweater will have to wait, though, because now he is training with Keith, despite the fact that he had trained by himself and then with Hunk earlier that day. Lance had voiced his concerns, of course, but Keith had all but dragged him onto the training deck with what remotely resembled a pout on his face. They just _had_ to train together. 

Lance thinks it would be pretty cute, if not for the fact that he is pretty sure Keith is over-exerting himself. 

“You’re still leaving yourself open on your left side, Lance,” Keith says. A punch to his side follows, and Lance groans. 

They are currently working on Lance’s hand-to-hand. According to Keith, he needs to be able to defend himself at close-range. He’s right, of course, but that doesn’t change the fact that he probably has a dozen bruises already. Keith isn’t the type to pull his punches. 

They circle each other again, and this time, Lance is consciously thinking about his left side. He refuses to allow Keith to get another hit in there. He’s also thinking about how he can play his size to his advantage, even though he’s probably only an inch or two taller. Really, he’s just looking to not get his ass handed to him. Again. 

Keith charges, and Lance evades, and maybe, just maybe, he sees a grin on Keith’s face. Hoping that he is distracted enough, Lance sends a punch towards _Keith’s_ left side. He doesn’t connect but manages to maintain his balance, unlike previous attempts. This time, he’s sure that Keith is smiling. 

Now it’s Keith’s turn to go on the offensive, and Lance is making sure that he isn’t open on his left side. Of course, in thinking about that, he leaves his right side open, and Keith lands a solid hit there. For not the first time, he’s glad that they opted to put on their armor for this particular spar. 

“I didn’t leave my left side open!” 

Keith, again, smiles, and Lance is momentarily blinded by just how pretty Keith is when he smiles. 

Apparently, he’s blinded enough that he doesn’t see when Keith comes at him and tackles him to the ground. 

“You left your left side open,” Keith says. He’s on top of Lance now, and his hands are pinning Lance by his shoulders. At this distance, Lance can feel Keith’s breath against his face, and his own breath catches in his throat. 

He notes that Keith has very pretty eyes. 

“Did I leave my left side open, or did you just full-frontal _assault_ me?” Lance asks, and nope, his voice most definitely did not crack just then. 

Keith has the courtesy to, at the very least, look the tiniest bit sheepish. “I saw the opportunity, and I took it.” He says it as though tackling Lance has been something that he has put previous thought into, and for a hopeful second, Lance is thinking that maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance that Keith may like him back. 

Before Lance can protest, Keith is getting to his feet again and then offering a hand to Lance. He takes it, and Keith pulls him up. Once again, Lance finds his own face in very close proximity to Keith’s, but this time, Keith’s breath hitches instead. 

“We should, um,” Keith starts before looking down and seeing that his hand is still clasped firmly in Lance’s. He lets go, and Lance immediately misses the warmth. “We should get ready for dinner.”

Lance opens his mouth to respond, but Keith bolts out the door. 

+++ 

After dinner, Lance retreats to his room to begin knitting Keith’s sweater. His mind is still swirling from their training session earlier that day, and the fact that Keith refused to make eye contact with him at dinner is only making his thoughts swirl a little faster. Does Keith like him? Or did Keith figure out that Lance likes him and is now feeling horribly awkward? Should he even be making a sweater? What if Keith doesn’t like it? Maybe he should wait for space-Christmas and just give everyone their sweaters at the same time… 

He snorts. By the time he finishes making the sweater, it _is_ going to be space-Christmas. Not to mention making sweaters for Hunk and Pidge… he should make sweaters for Allura and Coran, too, shouldn’t he? 

… 

Do the mice need sweaters? 

+++

They find Shiro. 

Shiro _definitely_ needs a sweater. 

+++

It takes Lance about a month, but he finally, f-i-n-a-l-l-y, finishes Keith’s sweater. It isn’t incredibly complicated, just a red sweater that he hopes will fit Keith well, but it feels like an accomplishment nonetheless. He may have adopted a sleeping schedule not too dissimilar from Pidge’s to finish it between missions… 

He’s debating how he wants to give the sweater to Keith exactly. He has a feeling that walking up and saying “accept this sweater as a token of my affection” would not go over well. At the same time, he needs some sort of justification as to why he poured his soul into making this sweater, something simply beyond, “hey, man, we’re friends, and friends make each other sweaters.” That would be _extremely_ lame. 

Another problem is that Keith has low-key been avoiding him. They still hang out, sure, but Keith is prone to bolt at the sign of anything crossing into the “more than friends” category. So, yeah, maybe Lance is wrong about Keith liking boys, which he doesn’t think he is? But he could be? Or more likely, Keith just doesn’t like him. 

This internal turmoil lives in Lance long enough that it becomes distracting during missions. So, after a mission where he almost misses a Galra sneaking up behind him because he was so busy making sure Keith wouldn’t get hurt, everyone (namely Pidge) has had enough. 

She pounces on him the second that he is out of Red. 

“You,” she jabs him in the chest, “are going to grab your sweater, you are going to march to Keith’s room, and you are going to give. it. to. him. Because the second that I have to drag _your_ ass out of trouble is the second that this has become a problem, Lance.” 

Lance nods and goes to his room to retrieve the sweater and change out of his sweaty Paladin armor. 

Before he knows it, he is standing in front of Keith’s door with sweater and stolen t-shirt in hand. 

This is it. 

He takes a deep breath and knocks on the door. He only has to stand there a moment before it slides open to reveal Keith, who is standing with arms crossed. 

“Hey, man, there’s something I need to tell you-”

Keith grabs him by the collar and pulls him into his room. 

“What do you mean that you nearly got yourself killed because you were looking out for me?” 

Lance swallows. “Yeah, that, um, that goes along with what I need to tell you.” 

Keith releases his grip on Lance’s collar and waits expectedly. 

“First, in case you noticed that you were missing a t-shirt, here it is.” Lance hands it to Keith. “I used it to make you a sweater.” He holds up the sweater and wiggles it. “Ta-da.” 

“Why would you-”

“I really like you, Keith.”

There’s a brief moment in which Keith just stares at him, and in that moment, Lance feels as though he has made the worst mistake in his entire life. Keith doesn’t like him, and their tentative friendship is now ruined. They won’t be able to form Voltron, and the universe is doomed. 

Bravo, Lance. 

But then, Keith is blushing, and with a slight stutter, he says, “I really like you, too, Lance.” 

To say that Lance is caught off-guard would be an understatement. “You what?!”

This time, Keith doesn’t respond in words, but instead, he gently presses his lips to Lance’s. Like his hands, his lips are warm. They are also soft, and this, by far, is the best thing that has ever happened to Lance. 

Keith pulls away earlier than Lance would like. “You made me a sweater?” Keith prompts. 

Lance nods and hands the red sweater to Keith. “Accept it as a token of my affection.” 

(He mentally face-palms.)

Keith pulls the sweater over his current t-shirt, and with a sigh of relief, Lance notes that it fits perfectly. The sweater fits, and Keith likes him back. All is well in the universe. 

“You know, I was really scared that you didn’t like me back…” Lance says. 

“Really?” Keith looks surprised. “I thought you didn’t like me back.” 

“…we’re idiots, aren’t we?” 

Keith nods and pulls Lance into another kiss. 

+++

Each year, Lance has to make Keith a new sweater because he wears them to the point of falling apart. 

-Fin-

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and/or comments greatly appreciated!


End file.
